This file photo, provided by Korea Offshore Wind Power on Oct. 27, 2020, shows a test site of the offshore wind farm to be built in seas off the coast between Gochang County and Buan County, which is about 250 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
SEOUL, Oct. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — The capacity utilization rate remains low for South Korea’s largest offshore wind farm, located in the coastal waters of Buan in North Jeolla Province, primarily due to low wind velocity.
According to the data that Rep. Han Moo-kyung of the People Power Party received from the Korea Electric Power Corp., the wind velocity of the coastal water of Buan, about 280 kilometers southwest of Seoul where the offshore wind farm with a total capacity of 60 megawatts (MW) is located averaged at 6.03 meters per second last year.
This is lower than the 7 meters per second minimum average standard for offshore wind power generation calculated by the Korea Electric Power Research Institute.
Over the past year, the number of days with average wind velocity of less than 4 m/s was 98 days, with the number of days with a utilization rate of less than 10 percent estimated at 130 days.
Accordingly, the average utilization rate of the offshore wind farm remained low at 22 percent.
According to a report from the Korea Energy Economics Institute, the unit power generation cost of an offshore wind farm is estimated at 275.59 won per kilowatt-hour (kWh), more than five times higher than 54 won for nuclear power.
In contrast, the construction cost of an offshore wind farm is estimated at 5.8 billion won (US$4.89 million) per MW, about twice as high as the per MW cost of building a nuclear power plant.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
